by Lisa Unger
Lydia smiled and shook his hand but didn’t offer her name. He released her hand a moment later than was appropriate and glided past her. He removed the information tag from the wall beside the painting and replaced it with one that read SOLD.
“Unfortunately, this piece was sold this morning.”
“Bad news travels fast,” said Jeffrey.
Orlando gave Jeffrey a cool smile. “But there are many more interesting pieces in the back I can show you, if you like.”
He was handsome and sexual in a very effeminate way, not as though he were gay but in the way of European men. As if he were more in touch with his emotions and less afraid to show them than an American man. She could sense that he was highly temperamental. It was something in the shape of his eyes, the warmth of his hand, and the sway of his hips that communicated to Lydia that he would be an earth-shattering lover.
“Are they recent?” Lydia asked.
“Yes, of course. One of them she turned in just a few days ago. Of course, it may be her last for a while. So, it’s particularly valuable,” he said matter-of-factly. “Follow me.”
She turned around to tell Dax they were going in the back, but he was already right behind her.
The room behind the gallery space was bigger than Lydia had expected. There were hundreds of shrouded canvases leaning against the walls like ghosts. The lighting was dim and the air cooler than it had been in front, she imagined to preserve the artwork. A light and not unpleasant scent of paint and linseed oil permeated the room. In the back she saw a large black lacquer desk with a computer, a credit card machine, and stacks of files. She also noticed a framed picture, a close-up of Julian Ross smiling radiantly, her cheeks flushed from the sun, a wisp of dark hair blown in front of her eye. She looked happy, in love. Lydia glanced over at Orlando DiMarco as he climbed up on a chair to remove a shroud from the largest canvas in the room, and wondered.
“You carry Julian Ross’s work exclusively?” she asked, as he struggled with the far corner of the sheet. Jeffrey moved in to help him, but Orlando waved him away.
“Well, mostly,” he said. “Though recently I have started to feature other artists. There has always been enough demand for Julian’s work, but she hasn’t been as prolific in recent years.”
“Why is that, do you think?”
“She was happy,” he said almost sadly, and the shroud dropped to the floor.
A monster stared out at them, trapped in Julian Ross’s canvas. It was a face divided in half. On the right, the canvas was dominated by the features of a handsome young man, his mouth drawn into a twisted sneer. He had a shock of blue-black hair and one clear green eye, in which there was the reflection of a beautiful woman. The figure posed in the reflection of his eye, naked, her arms bent lifting her hair off her neck, her breasts pushed forward. On the left, it was the same face but age had warped the features, the hair had grown long and gray, twisted into shabby dreads, his teeth brown and sharp. His mouth was drawn into the same sneer, but a trickle of blood trailed from the corner of his mouth. In his eye, the reflection of the same woman, mutilated, her body opened and innards escaping, hung from the black branches of a great oak tree. The detail of the face and the images dancing in his eyes was exquisite, every line, every shadow, every muscle defined by the deft hand of a gifted, accomplished artist. It was remarkable.
All four of them stood there looking.
“What did she say about it?” Lydia asked finally.
“Nothing. She had it sent by messenger. I called her and she never returned my call,” he said, and sounded bitter.
“Who is it?”
“Look closely.”
She examined the detailed facial features of the man and at the woman reflected in the green pools of his eyes.
“It’s her,” said Lydia. “It’s Julian Ross.”
“The woman?” asked Jeffrey, looking more closely at the reflection in the monster’s eyes.
“Both,” answered Lydia. She walked over to the desk and picked up the picture she had seen there. Orlando looked uncomfortable but didn’t protest. She held the picture up for Jeffrey and the features were undeniably similar to the man in the painting.
“What did she call it?”
“He Has Come for Me,” he said, shaking his head. “I think it’s her most disturbing work. Though I can’t say why. There’s just something so fearful about it.”
“How well do you know her?” Lydia asked.
Orlando reached out and took the photo gently from Lydia’s hand. “Who are you?” he asked, suspicion creeping into his voice. “You’re not here to buy art.”
“No,” said Jeffrey, holding out his private investigator’s identification. “Eleanor Ross has asked us to find out what happened to Julian’s husband. I’m Jeffrey Mark and this is Lydia Strong. This is our associate Dax Chicago.”
Orlando nodded, as if he weren’t surprised. Most people would have been at least annoyed, but he looked suddenly tired. Lydia saw him retreat into himself. He got that glazed-over look that people get when their thoughts have turned inward. He walked back over to his desk, placed the frame back in its place, and sat in the chair behind his desk.
“We have worked together for over twenty years. We were … we are friends,” he said, still looking at the photograph, and Lydia saw so much more than feelings of friendship there in his face.
“So you knew her when her first husband was murdered,” said Lydia.
He nodded. “She was acquitted,” he said, a little defensively. “She’s innocent … of that and of this. I’m sure of it.”
“How can you be so certain?”
He sat forward and looked directly at Lydia. She walked closer to him, while Dax and Jeffrey hung back a bit. Lydia sat down across from Orlando, returned his gaze. He sounded positive, as though there were not a doubt in his mind. But Lydia had to wonder, wouldn’t even the most loyal friend have his suspicions after the second murder?
“Because I know her,” he said, sitting back.
“So then, any thoughts on who would be motivated to murder Julian Ross’s husbands?” she asked, keeping her voice light and even. Here she saw his eyes shift, as if he were remembering something. Whatever it was, he didn’t share it.
“Someone who was stalking her, someone who wanted to hurt her, an enemy?” Lydia pressed. “Was there anyone she feared?”
Orlando shook his head slowly. “No,” he said, his voice harder, more certain than his eyes.
Lydia nodded now, thoughtful. She was reaching, probing, looking for something that might give her a map of Julian’s life, something that might lead her eventually to find out how it had fallen so horribly apart.
“You said she was happy. She was happy with her husband?” said Lydia. “She loved him?”
He shrugged. Again the shade of something across his face.
“Yes, she loved him. He gave her the thing she wanted most in life, her children,” he said quietly. “Lola and Nathaniel—she loved them more than her art. She would never do anything that would take her away from them.”
It was an interesting answer. Interesting because of what he didn’t say. She had expected to hear how wonderful Richard and Julian were together, that she loved him more than life, that she could never hurt him. But he didn’t say any of those things.
“Was there trouble in her marriage? Were they having problems?”
He raised his hands and stood. His face had flushed and now there was anger in his eyes. “That’s enough. What you are looking for here, you will not find. She’s innocent. This I know for a fact.”
“You could only know that for certain if you know who killed Richard Stratton.”
Orlando looked stricken for just a second. But then he just shook his head and grew quiet.
“I don’t need to know that. I know Julian.”
Lydia looked back at the monstrous face on Julian’s canvas.
“But her art is so violent. Is it possible that there’s a side of h
er you never saw?”
He followed her eyes to the canvas and didn’t answer for a second. “I suppose,” he said, looking from the canvas to the photo in his hand. “There’s a side to all of us that no one ever sees.”
The basketball courts on West Fourth Street were packed as usual with mostly young black guys and a couple of white guys either playing hard or hanging on the fence watching. Most of the players had their shirts off and were sweating like it was July even though the air was cool going on cold. The bouncing ball and the short shrieks of rubber soles on the asphalt echoed off the concrete buildings and an occasional cheer rose up like a wave over the traffic of Sixth Avenue. Jeffrey watched a young man fall hard on the concrete with a groan trying to block another player’s shot and then bounce right up like he was made out of rubber. He was back on his feet and running across the court.
“I remember what it was like to be young and in shape like that,” said Jeffrey.
“You’re not ready for life support yet, Grandpa,” said Lydia, patting his hard, flat abs.
“I’m just saying … you don’t get up from a fall like that and run a mile after forty, you know.”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said with a smile. She liked to rub in their ten-year age difference whenever possible. He gave her a look.
Dax had left them suddenly after he received a mysterious call on his cell, so Lydia and Jeffrey proceeded to their meeting with Ford McKirdy alone. They entered the Yum Yum Diner on the corner and found a table toward the back of the converted trailer that stood next to a playground under the shade of trees. They slid into the same side of a red leather booth and Lydia started to flip through the mini-jukebox at the end of the table. The smell of coffee, grease, and cigarettes had worked its way into the walls and the leather seats. Lydia was suddenly ravenous, lost interest in the jukebox, and eyed the pie case, where cakes and pastries rotated enticingly on plastic shelves. The Yum Yum Diner was the kind of place that was just as packed at three A.M. when people were heading home from the clubs as it was on a weekday at lunchtime.
Jeffrey waved to Ford as he watched his old friend make his way through the crowd that was forming for lunch. Jeffrey stood up to shake Ford’s hand.
“It’s been too long, man,” Jeffrey said. “How’re you doing?”
“You look good, Jeff. You, too, Lydia. How are you?” said Ford, taking Lydia’s hand.
He sat down across from them, and placed on the table a manila envelope he had carried in his left hand. Ford McKirdy looked soft and pasty to Lydia. She knew him to be a little over fifty and he looked every second of it. The late nights, high stress level, and bad diet of a cop’s life were taking their toll. He had a light sheen of perspiration on his forehead and she noticed that his belly grazed the edge of the table as he slid with effort into the booth.
“How was your meeting with Eleanor Ross?” asked Lydia.
“Chilly,” said Ford, wiping his brow with a napkin. “That woman is a real piece of work. She was supposed to come with the nanny. But she claimed not to have anyone else to leave the children with; I’ll have to catch up with Geneva Stout later.”
“She give you anything?” asked Jeff.
“Claims she didn’t see or hear anything until Julian started screaming.”
“What did she tell you about their marriage?” asked Lydia.
“Said they were happy. She’d been with them three weeks and said they didn’t have so much as a tiff that she saw.”
“Where’s she visiting from?”
“She lives in Boca now part of the year, part of the year here with her daughter. Said she would have been with them through the holidays and then back down to the condo after the New Year.”
“So what was it like? The scene, I mean,” asked Jeffrey.
“You know, you asked me the same question ten years ago. My answer is the same. It was a fucking mess. Not the same struggle as last time, but Richard Stratton was taken to pieces, just the same as Tad Jenson. I brought you copies of the crime scene photos and my preliminary findings and notes,” he said, sliding the envelope over to them. “You guys are taking the case, right?”
“I haven’t called Eleanor Ross yet, but I think so. I want another shot at this and I know you do, too.”
“You’re damn right.”
“You think there was someone else there this time?”
“I don’t know … doesn’t look like it. On the other hand, it doesn’t look like she could have done it alone. There was blood on the ceiling … a twelve-foot ceiling, for Christ’s sake. The doorman said no one came or left from the front door. But we got no murder weapon. From the preliminary findings of the ME, he said it was a serrated knife, just like the last time. One other thing … don’t tell anyone about this. We’re keeping it from the press. Richard Stratton’s ring finger, and his wedding ring with it, are missing. Unless she swallowed the knife, the ring, and the finger or hid them very, very well, someone else took them from the scene. When I got to her, she was in no condition for a lucid action like hiding evidence.”
“Or so she’d have you believe,” said Jeffrey.
Ford shrugged, gave a quick nod. “Yeah. Tell you what. She’s faking it? Then she’s one hell of an actress.”
“Tad was missing his ring and ring finger, too,” Jeffrey explained to Lydia.
“Nice,” said Lydia with a shake of her head.
Lydia turned it over in her mind, what a thing like that might mean. Was it a symbol? Was she freeing herself from the bonds of marriage? Or was someone else freeing her from it?
“You said she wasn’t lucid when you found her?” asked Lydia.
“She was losing it. She wouldn’t leave the room where her husband had been killed. When the paramedics took her away, she was ranting. She said, among other things, ‘He’s come for me.’ ”
Lydia and Jeffrey exchanged a look.
“What?”
“We just came from her gallery. A couple of days ago she turned in a painting to Orlando DiMarco, her rep there. She’d titled it He Has Come for Me.”
Lydia described the painting to Ford. He took notes as she spoke, she could see him taking the information in, plugging it into the equation that was growing in his mind.
“I’ll head over there and check it out,” said Ford. “I remember Orlando DiMarco from the investigation ten years ago. He was a big cokehead then. Rumor was that they were lovers, on-again off-again … nothing serious. But I was never able to place him at the scene. Anyway I had him pegged for a lover … not a murderer. Bet he wouldn’t want to mess up all those pretty clothes.”
“It looked to me like there were some hurt feelings there. I would have put money on him being in love with her,” said Lydia.
He nodded and looked at her without seeing her. It was a look she recognized from Jeffrey and even herself. He was moving pieces of information around in his head trying to see what fit where.
“So, what’s the game plan, kids?” he said after a moment in thought and coming back to the present. “I think I’ll pay a visit to Mr. DiMarco. Take a look at that painting.”
“I think we’ll pay Julian Ross a visit,” answered Lydia.
“Good luck. She’s gone, baby, gone. You’re going to need a decoder ring to get anywhere with that one right now.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Lydia said as the waitress approached. She looked ridiculous and unhappy in a pink-and-white-checked uniform with matching cap, someone’s idea of what a fifties diner waitress would wear. Her name tag read BUFFY. She was clearly over fifty years old, and her enormous breasts hung down to the top of her apron. Buffy looked at her customers beneath layers of blue eye makeup and mascara.
“What can I getcha?” she said.
“I’ll have a bacon double cheeseburger with fries and a large chocolate milkshake,” said Ford as the waitress scribbled in her pad.
Lydia looked at him with worry, hoping that he wasn’t going to have a heart attack right there at the ta
ble.
“I’ll have the same,” she said.
chapter five
Urine, Lysol, and misery were the odors that assailed Lydia and Jeffrey as a strapping orderly buzzed them through a heavy metal door. They stepped into a gray, dimly lit hallway with speckled Formica floors, brightly clean and polished, with a flat wooden railing running the length of each of the walls. Lydia could hear the sounds of someone sobbing and someone laughing.
“Is this your first visit to a psychiatric facility?” asked Dr. Linda Barnes, a bright, pretty young woman whose deep, sultry voice seemed incongruous to her petite frame. Lydia and Jeffrey had met the doctor down on the street in front of the clinic. It was clear from her clipped attitude that the doctor was not pleased with the visit Eleanor Ross had insisted upon. She had the drawn look of someone acting against her better judgment, offered nothing but a quick polite greeting and then an escort up to Julian Ross. She walked quickly and quietly, her rubber-soled shoes not making a sound on the floor. Lydia and Jeffrey had to pick up their pace to keep up with her.
“No,” answered Lydia, “We’ve both seen our share of places like this.”
“I ask because the first time can be pretty rough on the uninitiated,” she said.
“We are fairly well acquainted with insanity,” said Jeffrey.
The doctor shot him a look. “We prefer ‘mental illness’ in my profession.”
“Call it what you will, Doctor,” said Jeffrey.
A large man with a larger brow and a badly shaved head shuffled past them. His lids were purple and heavy, his eyes stared off into the distance intently as he clenched and unclenched his fists. He muttered something unintelligible as he moved past.
“Normally, we wouldn’t allow Ms. Ross any visitors at all,” she said. “It is not advisable to her recovery at this point. But since there are special circumstances and her mother insists, I’ll allow it. But I am going to ask you to keep this visit as brief as possible.”
“I understand,” said Lydia. “How is she?”
“She’s had a psychotic break. It’s a state that occurs, usually, when the mind has sustained a shock that it is not equipped to handle. Julian has more or less shut down. She is incoherent … sometimes ranting, sometimes nearly catatonic. This is more than likely a temporary condition … but I couldn’t hazard a guess as to how long it will last.”